Historians don't always get to dine with the famous personalities they study, but Marilynn Larew was lucky.

In January 1990, Larew met retired Gen. William C. Westmoreland at a Washington, D.C., restaurant for lunch.

Yes, the same Westmoreland who commanded U.S. forces in Vietnam from 1964-68 and was later called a war criminal and vilified for his failure to win.

"I was studying and teaching the Vietnamese War, and he was coming to Washington for some reason," said Larew, who taught at state universities in Maryland.

"I wrote him and asked if I could interview him. If we could meet. We did."

Even at 75, Westmoreland stood erect and confident - every bit the spit-and-polish, white-haired officer and gentleman Larew remembered from television newscasts and newspaper photographs.

But two hours later, Larew left the encounter puzzled and, nearly 19 years later, feels the same.

"I could not understand - and I still cannot - how a professional military man with a fine career behind him, could not understand what was going on in the war," said Larew, now 72 and retired in Hopewell Township.

Westmoreland, who died in 2005, presided over a dramatic buildup of American troops in Vietnam from 16,000 when he arrived to more than 500,000 in 1968, even as casualties were mounting.

President Lyndon B. Johnson replaced Westmoreland later that year after the series of devastating Communist attacks throughout South Vietnam known as the Tet Offensive.

Westmoreland had sought (unsuccessfully) for permission to engage enemy forces in Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam where they retreated for sanctuary.

His strategy was to fight a war of attrition, trying to destroy the enemy faster than they could be replaced.

But his optimistic judgments about how the war was going were overshadowed by the increasing number of American dead.

For decades after the divisive conflict ended, Westmoreland maintained that it wasn't the U.S. military that lost the war but the politicians who lost their nerve and war protestors who marched in the streets.

Gen. Westmoreland. (Submitted)

"Had President Johnson changed our strategy and taken advantage of the enemy's weakness to enable me to carry out the operations we had prepared over the preceding two years in Laos and Cambodia and north of the demilitarized zone, along with intensified bombing and the mining of Haiphong harbor, the North Vietnamese doubtlessly would have broken," he wrote in his 1976 memoir, "A Soldier Reports."

Instead, Westmoreland believed, the U.S. "in the end abandoned South Vietnam."

He still believed the same thing years later when he spoke with Larew.

"I knew many of the things he'd said in public were simply not true, so I thought he was consciously lying," Larew said.

After meeting Westmoreland, she wasn't so sure. She expected to find Westmoreland a villain but ended up liking him, despite their disagreements on the war.

He didn't seem to comprehend the war opposition that grew among Americans after Tet, she said.

He emphasized the enemy had never beaten American and South Vietnamese soldiers on the battlefield.

"He would have been an outstanding World War II general. But the Vietnam War was a different war, and he was not perfectly attuned to it," said Westmoreland biographer Ernest B. Furgurson.

Westmoreland's military was trained for a war fought against Russians on the plains of northern Germany, Larew said. American forces didn't expect the guerrilla tactics the North Vietnamese had perfected over centuries of fighting off Chinese invaders, she said.

Historians also suggest that, despite tens of thousands of dead Communist troops, Westmoreland never appreciated the losses Hanoi was willing to suffer in a war it considered a battle for national liberation.

"Westmoreland didn't understand - nor did anyone else understand - that there wasn't a breaking point," reporter Stanley Karnow wrote in his Pulitzer-winning book "Vietnam: A History." "Instead of breaking their morale, they were breaking ours."

Larew concluded that Westmoreland - however subconsciously - simply didn't accept what happened, even with years of hindsight.

"It would be a pretty dreadful thing to have to stop and say that everything you ever believed and worked for turned out wrong," Larew said.

"It wasn't that he did all that consciously, because I don't believe he'd consciously lie to the American people. I think he lied to himself. It's very sad, actually. He had this look of puzzlement in his eyes the whole time we were talking. As if, he sort of missed something."

771-2024; mburke@ydr.com

STORIES FROM VIETNAM WAR

I was in Vietnam in 1966-67 with the United States Marine Corps. When I served in Vietnam, there were five of us from York County serving in the same battalion at the same time. . . .

During my tour we had about 1,000 guys, over 600 casualties. I remember 13 months of lack of sleep, over 240 patrols, 11 major combat operations. And most of all, meeting a lot of nice, young men who died for a country which was a war that we shouldn't have been in because it was a lie from the Johnson administration. Today, there are only a couple men left from my original platoon.

- Stan Brenner, 63, West Manchester Township

In 1965, I was a first lieutenant in the Army stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland. I was scheduled to have a wisdom tooth pulled by an Army dentist when suddenly President Johnson ordered the 11th Cavalry Regiment stationed at Fort Meade to go to Vietnam on a moment's notice, and all the soldiers had to have their teeth checked before going.

So, the dentists were entirely full up, and I had to postpone my wisdom teeth being pulled for a couple weeks.

- Karl Larew, 71, of Hopewell Township

I was in Vietnam from March of 1969 to April of '70. I was with the U.S. Army Americal Division, 2nd of the First 196th (Light Infantry Brigade). We were on the L.V. Baldy and L.D. Bulk Hill (landing zones). ...

I can recall the times that we got overrun, and it was not a pretty sight. One thing about Vietnam that a lot of people don't tell you is we never got close to a lot of people because one day they were there, and the next day they were gone.

I'm very proud I'm a Vietnam vet. I am disabled 100 percent. ... I was proud to serve in Vietnam, but the way we were treated when we come home - how people spit on us and called us baby killers - and to this day we are not treated fairly. You saw a lot of stuff that in Vietnam that people just don't believe, but psychologists and psychiatrists do.

- Rick Folkenroth, 58, of Windsor Township

I served in the Marine Corps from 1965-1972. I was in Vietnam from 1966 to 1967. ...

I was an advisory and instructor in a multifuel engine - a vehicle engine that could burn seven different types of fuels without loss of horsepower. I had five men with me: We were a mobile instruction team, and we traveled all over South Vietnam, five days at a time at a different base. ...

October of '67, I was on Okinawa station. I needed spare parts to rebuild the engines from Vietnam that were coming up damaged. Believe it or not, I had to go to Vietnam to get the parts, so I could build the engines in Okinawa.

... Before I left South Vietnam, I was at Saigon and near the embassy area there before the Battle of the Tet. I saw a lot of people being buried, and a lot of ambulances going to the cemeteries. I found out later on they were burying ammunition and guns in their caskets, so when Tet happened they used that to fight against the American servicemen and women.

The American servicemen and women did their job in South Vietnam as far as advisers go - teaching how to take care of themselves, pave highways, build schools, train the South Vietnamese Army and Air Force; advisories about how to have water come into the area, purify the water and so forth.

The duties that Americans did was wonderful, and the South Vietnamese didn't hold up their end when the Americans came back to the states.

- Anthony D. Stabile, West Manchester Township

I served in Vietnam War in the year of '67. The Tet Offensive is the conflict that sticks out most in my mind. The American forces were celebrating Christmas, and we were caught off guard, which led to the overrun of Saigon and Tien Giang and other provinces. Soldiers in the rear defended Saigon, while helicopters unloaded M60 machine guns ...

The ones that were able to fly off, took off, bringing the soldiers from the field back to defend the rear. The North Vietnam and the Viet Cong, pretty much destroyed most of the planes and helicopters on the airstrip. The 101st Airborne dug in, defended Saigon, waiting for reinforcements and Puff the Magic Dragon to re-take Saigon and remaining provinces.

This was the greatest turning point for the Army 101st Airborne and the American forces. This is one of my moments I remember from Vietnam.

- Julius Fields, 63, of York

I graduated from York Catholic High School in 1961. I joined the United States Marine Corps in August. ...

After boot camp, I was transferred back to Parris Island to serve as a rifle instructor and was stationed there little over two years.

I became very good friends with a David Russell. We lived in the weapons-training battalion in the same cubicle (there was two men to each cubicle). We became very good friends, traveled together.

After a little over two years, I got sent to Japan for a few months. "Russ" was sent to Morocco for a couple of years tour of duty.

Eventually, I got transferred to Okinawa and I was in the Third Marine Division. The division got sent to Vietnam in early 1965, as more troops were needed. My four-year enlistment was about up, and was headed back to the U.S., and got discharged in July 1965. Luckily, or fortunately, I did not get to go to Vietnam with the division.

Russ had re-enlisted and later was sent to Vietnam with the Second Marine Division. We corresponded quite often, and he told me some bad facts about the war and tragedy. He was married before going to Vietnam and had a few days R&R and went to visit his wife and 3-month-old daughter in Hawaii.

On March 12, 1968, I received a letter from his wife Jerry, who was living in Jacksonville, North Carolina, near Camp Lejeune. A sad day as I read the letter. She was notifying me that Russ was killed on March 9, 1968.

The irony of it was that he had only three weeks before leaving there to head home. My wife and I ... attended his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. It was a tragic day for his wife and family members and myself as well. I'm sure many other wives and parents and families across the country have gone through the same ordeal.

This tragic event was on my mind for many years after that. ... All future plans ended, just like his life.

I salute him and all other comrades who fought and died for our country and our well-being.

- Joe Darinsig, 65, Spring Garden Township

SHARE

Discuss your Vietnam War views on our forum, inyork.com/exchange.

SUPPORT

Donations for the York County Vietnam Memorial can be sent to:

Vietnam Memorial

York County Department of Veterans Affairs

100 W. Market St.

York, PA 17405

For more information on the memorial or purchasing an engraved brick at the memorial site, call Anthony Stabile at 792-9107.

VETS BY THE NUMBERS

23.6 million

The number of military veterans in the United States in 2007.

38,155

The number of military veterans in York County in 2007.

7.9 million

Number of Vietnam-era veterans in 2007. One-third of all living veterans served during this time (1964-1975).

9.3 million

The number of veterans 65 and older in 2007. At the other end of the age spectrum, 1.9 million were younger than 35.

358,000

In 2007, number of living veterans who served during both the Vietnam and Gulf War eras.

5

Number of states, including Pennsylvania, with 1 million or more veterans in 2007. Besides Pennsylvania, the states are California, Florida, Texas and New York.

$36,053

Annual median income of veterans, in 2007 inflation-adjusted dollars.

5.7 percent

Percentage of veterans living in poverty, as of 2007. The corresponding rate for non-veterans was 12 percent.

25 percent

Percent of veterans age 25 and older with at least a bachelor's degree in 2007.

90 percent

Percent of veterans age 25 and older with a high school diploma or higher in 2007.

6 million

Number of veterans with a disability.

2.7 million

Number of veterans who received compensation for service-connected disabilities as of 2006. Their compensation totaled $28.2 billion.

$72.8 billion

Total amount of federal government spending for veterans benefits programs in fiscal year 2006.

Of this total, $34.6 billion went to compensation and pensions, $33.7 billion for medical programs and the remainder to other programs, such as vocational rehabilitation and education.

Source: Census Bureau

VETERANS DAY

The date Nov. 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of "the war to end all wars" - when the fighting in World War I ceased.

A year later, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Nov. 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day:

"To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations..."

The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business.

Congress later renamed the legal holiday Veterans Day in 1954 to make the day one for honoring American veterans of all wars.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs

IF YOU GO

What: Memorial service by students of Yorktowne Business Institute for veterans interred in the city-owned potters' field

When: 11 a.m. today

Where: York City Cemetery at the corner of Schley Alley and West Seventh Avenue in North York, adjacent to Prospect Hill Cemetery

For details: 846-5000

ABOUT THE SERIES

The "Remember. . ." series is a monthly feature that challenges readers to remember poignant moments in personal, local and national

history.

Visit the Lifestyle section of inyork.com/ydr and click "Remember" in the special sections area to hear readers share their memories about: